HERE OUT WEST Part 2 - Bina Bhattacharya on the Importance of Language, Place and Identity

In this episode we chat with award-winning filmmaker (Writer/Producer/Director) , Bina Bhattacharya about her involvement in the soon to be released film, Here Out West. In the chapter Bina wrote for the film, she explores identity and assimilation of migrants through the story of a young woman who can’t communicate with her dying Indian father in his own language because she doesn’t know how. While the story is purely fictional, she draws from her own experience of coming from a mixed-race family, an Indian father and white mother, and not knowing her father’s Bengali language. 
Bina shunned her Indian heritage when she was growing up in her need to ‘fit in’ with her Aussie friends, but she has gone on to deeply embrace and appreciate her cultural background as an adult. Bina believes deeply in the importance of learning the language of your origin and understands firsthand the losses experienced when this doesn’t happen. She explores how assimilation doesn’t need to mean giving up your heritage and explains from personal experience how much you can lose while trying to be a cool white kid in your teen years. Bina’s hope is that migrants who watch her chapter of the film will decide to learn or deepen their understanding of their parent’s language, that they will connect with their elders, and read the literature of their parents, so they can enjoy a truly
rich experience of multicultural life. 

HERE OUT WEST will release in Australian cinemas nationally February 3, 2022 and on ABC later this year.